What is bizarre to me is that people who have stolen an asset are now having a debate about the rights over it.
We reject co-governance because we want to have the appropriate conversation about the elephant in the room: how did Pakeha get to the table on a 100% Maori-owned asset?
No one on planet Earth can own water.
Unless Maori owned the water that arrived within the small celestial bodies 3.8 to 5 billion years ago, own the water that is in the Tasman sea and the Tropics and all the water that circulates in the conveyor belt of the equator, Antarctica, and in the Greenland and Labrador seas, then they have no claim on water ownership just like every other being on this marvellous planet.
Let me explain the science of water and its origin.
Water has existed on Earth for between 3.8 to 5 billion years as evidenced from the Isua Greenstone Belt. This water came from numerous small celestial bodies that may have existed at an early stage of the development of the solar system. The water on the earth now is the same water that existed 3.8 to 5 billion years ago.
The Earth’s water content is about 1.39 billion cubic kilometres (331 million cubic miles), with the bulk of it, about 96.5%, being in the global oceans. As for the rest, approximately 1.7% is stored in the polar ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow, and another 1.7% is stored in groundwater, lakes, rivers, streams, and soil. Only a thousandth of 1% of the water on Earth exists as water vapour in the atmosphere.
A typical water molecule will stick around in an ocean for, on average, a few thousand years. In rivers, a water molecule won’t dawdle as long — just a couple of weeks to several months. The water we drink today was drunk 65 million years ago by dinosaurs. This means you are also drinking dinosaur urine, that has evaporated out. The urine ratio is 350 million years of 5 billion ton of wet vertebrates urinating eight times their body weight per year equals 14,000 million cubic miles of urine. This means the atoms in your average water molecule will have been concentrated urine some 10 times already. And that is a conservative estimate. Sea life consumes the ocean water several times before it evaporates to form clouds in the sky and then during condensation, this water falls back to Earth as rain.
Back to where New Zealand’s water arrives from, remembering all the above evidence of the origins of water, now in circulation.
Cooling of surface waters near Antarctica, and in the Greenland and Labrador seas, creates cold, heavy water that sinks, setting up what is known as the great ocean conveyor belt. This brings warm surface water from the equator to the poles and returns cool waters at depth. The cooler deep-water mixes so that it warms and rises as it travels towards the equator. The conveyor belt slowly moves water from one ocean basin to another, redistributing heat, salt, and nutrients. This recirculation smooths out the earth’s temperature – without it, the poles would be considerably colder and the tropics significantly hotter.
The main water masses around New Zealand are subtropical and subantarctic waters. Subtropical water has arrived from near the equator. Heated and evaporated by the sun, it can be as warm as 22°C and as salty as 35.6 ppt (parts per thousand). Subantarctic water is relatively cool and fresh – rarely exceeding 10°C, with a salinity of 34.4 ppt. The journey of water is estimated to take 1,200 years to come full circle. The conveyor belt moves past New Zealand at a depth of about 2–5 kilometres.
For the South Island, the prevailing winds off the Tasman Sea meet the Southern Alps. The resultant precipitation makes the West Coast the wettest area in New Zealand.
For the North Island, the rain comes from the tropics.
All New Zealand’s water comes from the Equator, Tropics, Greenland, Labrador seas, Antarctica and through all the oceans on the water on the great ocean conveyor belt, with rainfall from those waters.
GP Stevenson writes for the BFD. This article was first published HERE
Unless Maori owned the water that arrived within the small celestial bodies 3.8 to 5 billion years ago, own the water that is in the Tasman sea and the Tropics and all the water that circulates in the conveyor belt of the equator, Antarctica, and in the Greenland and Labrador seas, then they have no claim on water ownership just like every other being on this marvellous planet.
Let me explain the science of water and its origin.
Water has existed on Earth for between 3.8 to 5 billion years as evidenced from the Isua Greenstone Belt. This water came from numerous small celestial bodies that may have existed at an early stage of the development of the solar system. The water on the earth now is the same water that existed 3.8 to 5 billion years ago.
The Earth’s water content is about 1.39 billion cubic kilometres (331 million cubic miles), with the bulk of it, about 96.5%, being in the global oceans. As for the rest, approximately 1.7% is stored in the polar ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow, and another 1.7% is stored in groundwater, lakes, rivers, streams, and soil. Only a thousandth of 1% of the water on Earth exists as water vapour in the atmosphere.
A typical water molecule will stick around in an ocean for, on average, a few thousand years. In rivers, a water molecule won’t dawdle as long — just a couple of weeks to several months. The water we drink today was drunk 65 million years ago by dinosaurs. This means you are also drinking dinosaur urine, that has evaporated out. The urine ratio is 350 million years of 5 billion ton of wet vertebrates urinating eight times their body weight per year equals 14,000 million cubic miles of urine. This means the atoms in your average water molecule will have been concentrated urine some 10 times already. And that is a conservative estimate. Sea life consumes the ocean water several times before it evaporates to form clouds in the sky and then during condensation, this water falls back to Earth as rain.
Back to where New Zealand’s water arrives from, remembering all the above evidence of the origins of water, now in circulation.
Cooling of surface waters near Antarctica, and in the Greenland and Labrador seas, creates cold, heavy water that sinks, setting up what is known as the great ocean conveyor belt. This brings warm surface water from the equator to the poles and returns cool waters at depth. The cooler deep-water mixes so that it warms and rises as it travels towards the equator. The conveyor belt slowly moves water from one ocean basin to another, redistributing heat, salt, and nutrients. This recirculation smooths out the earth’s temperature – without it, the poles would be considerably colder and the tropics significantly hotter.
The main water masses around New Zealand are subtropical and subantarctic waters. Subtropical water has arrived from near the equator. Heated and evaporated by the sun, it can be as warm as 22°C and as salty as 35.6 ppt (parts per thousand). Subantarctic water is relatively cool and fresh – rarely exceeding 10°C, with a salinity of 34.4 ppt. The journey of water is estimated to take 1,200 years to come full circle. The conveyor belt moves past New Zealand at a depth of about 2–5 kilometres.
For the South Island, the prevailing winds off the Tasman Sea meet the Southern Alps. The resultant precipitation makes the West Coast the wettest area in New Zealand.
For the North Island, the rain comes from the tropics.
All New Zealand’s water comes from the Equator, Tropics, Greenland, Labrador seas, Antarctica and through all the oceans on the water on the great ocean conveyor belt, with rainfall from those waters.
GP Stevenson writes for the BFD. This article was first published HERE
7 comments:
Precisely. Tamihere is talking nonsense. And in any case the water Auckland, to take an example, is drawing from the Waikato River fell as rain and snow on Tuwharetoa land at some stage. Or on a Taupo footpath. “Dinosaur urine” paints an appropriate picture. Fortunately the vast majority of New Zealanders will ignore this buffoonery.
It’s not the vast majority that matter, it’s those that make the deals with Tamihere et al that do matter. And they do not have to be the majority, simply have the power to make the deals.
Can someone please point this out to John Tamihere, Nanaia Mahuta, Chris H, Kieran McN...and all the other dimwits who think that Maori own our water?
Please.
MC
Someone must have 'something' on someone else for this nonsense to persist and be given oxygen by hipkins and others.
Excellent, interesting commentary GP, but you have only explained it in terms of a western science construct. No where do you mention the mauri (living spirit) of the wai (water) that we here in NZ, oops Aotearoa, embody to the point that we have given some waterways legal person status, notwithstanding they may have once been dinosaur pee? Without the careful oversight and guardianship that only the purported tangata whenua (or part Maori, like Mr Tamihere) can give us, we will all be the poorer for it. Although, of course, that guardianship itself comes at a price and, rather than being a free gift from Ranginui, it is important that Mr Tamihere and Co. receive financial support that, like the wai, hopefully lasts forever.
Excellent article. Your science is absolutely spot on.
As I have said previously on other sites, the truth, which is the scientific facts are as follows:-
The sun shines on the oceans of Planet Earth. The water evaporates into the air of Planet Earth. The water vapour forms clouds.
These clouds move around Planet Earth and the water vapour starts to condense.
The water vapour becomes water, and falls as rain, on Planet Earth. No-one "owns" the rain.
Sorry Tamihere!! Get real about science, not primitive Stone Age legends.
Also don't keep twisting the Treaty !!
The writer of this article is applying scientific rather than legal reasoning. There is most certainly such a thing as ownership rights over water, specifically fresh water as coastal waters 'belong' to the Crown. The rights of others come under legislation that protects those downstream; if the 'owner' of water pollutes the water, for instance, and the pollution gets downstream, this becomes a matter of liability.
However, the water in question must come under the title deed for specified land. We will have to make a distinction between water on Crown-held land and water in private hands.
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